


Ways and Means

by elaiel



Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Physical Disability
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-26
Updated: 2015-12-15
Packaged: 2018-02-22 18:28:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2517524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elaiel/pseuds/elaiel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's hard to cut all ties when the people you're hiding from have the resources of the Avengers...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> ~~This is the beginning of a partially written longer story that I likely won't finish, but I liked the beginning and it stands well enough on its own.~~  
>  I lied. I wrote more.

“Where is Coulson?” Clint growled.

“You know where Coulson is.” Fury’s voice was hard.

“No, actually sir, I don’t.” Clint ground out. “As it turns out he’s not where I expected him to be”

“And where was that?”

“Six feet under.”

There was a pause.

“Tony and Jarvis were very motivated.” Clint continued. “And whilst most of the files show Phil as being dead, there are some serious gaps in the recording, a room in medical that was mysteriously unused for three months, gaps in the stock control for medical and then a medical transfer vehicle that made an unscheduled arrival on deck but apparently then just disappeared.”

Fury looked tired for a moment, scratched under the edge of his patch then looked up with a glare.

“Coulson asked to disappear. He has resigned.”

“Resigned?” Clint was stunned.

“Coulson made it very clear that as he was unable to carry out the duties for which he was hired and he wanted to leave with no fanfare and make a new life.”

Fury was hard to read at the best of times, but Clint had the distinct impression that Fury and Coulson had disagreed on this point.

“Why?” Clint demanded. “Why can’t he do his job anymore?”

“His injury led to some impairment that appeared permanent.”

“Where is he?” Clint demanded. “Tell me where he is.”

“Barton,” Fury leaned forward on his desk slightly, “Coulson…Phil, _asked_ me, no, he **demanded** I let him go like this. He has a new name and a new life. **That’s** what he demanded of me.”

“I don’t believe you.”

Fury sighed, fingers rubbing under the edge of his patch. He turned to a cabinet built into the wall, thumbed a fingerprint ID patch and waited as a drawer slid out. He pulled out a paper file, flipped it open and pulled out a single sheet, sliding it across the table towards Clint.

Clint took a step forward to look down at the sheet. It was handwritten on a sheet of paper, Clint could the the faint outline of the SHIELD logo watermark floating behind the oh-so-familiar handwriting, just four lines of beautifully neat handwriting.

_“...I would just like to include how much I have valued your support over my time here, but now is time to go...”_

“He really went.”

“He really went.” Fury’s echo was uncharacteristically soft.

Clint stared at the paper for a while more before handing it back to Fury.

“Will you tell me where he is?”

“He asked me not to tell anyone.”

Clint swallowed. “You know we’ll find him.”

Fury nodded. “But I won’t have broken his trust.”

xxxoooxxx

Clint stood on the doorstep for almost five minutes before he could bring himself to knock on the door. In the end, it was only the twitching of a curtain at a house across the road that forced him to make a decision. He knocked, waited and after a long moment, the door was open.

The man in the wheelchair rolled it forward. “Clint.” He said.

Clint stared. “Coulson?”

“Not anymore.”

“Phil?”

There was a pause, then a nod.

Clint took him in top to toe, the hooded sweat shirt, jeans and sneakers resting on the footplates of the sporty looking wheelchair. He had lost weight and he hadn’t been carrying any extra in the first place.

“You’d better come in.” Phil wheeled the chair back through the front door, letting Clint walk up the ramp into the house.

It was wide and airy inside, the main part of the house open plan throughout, kitchen into dining area into living room into what was obviously an office area. A door led off by the large desk evidently to bedrooms and bathroom. A walking frame sat against one of the kitchen counters, it’s metal frame powder coated in deep green enamel to match the forest and earth tones the whole area was decorated in.

Phil pushed the door shut behind Clint and Clint turned.

“Can you…?”

“What?” Phil’s voice was tired, and his tone was odd to Clint’s ears, not even, not equable, not...Phil.

Clint gestured at the walking frame. “Walk?”

“I can weight bear for limited periods at the moment.” Phil said flatly. “Take two or three steps. Means I can cook dinner, transfer myself from chair to the toilet, and that with my shower stool I don’t need someone here to help me wash my ass.”

Clint flushed in embarrassment.

“What do you want Clint?”

“I…”

“I can’t work for SHIELD anymore. I’m not physically capable of my old job.”

“What are you doing now?” Clint asked, avoiding Phil’s earlier question.

“Retraining.”

“In what.”

“Psychology, with a focus on trauma.”

“Will you come back to SHIELD when you’re qualified?”

“No.” Phil said flatly. “What part of _‘I am not able to work for SHIELD anymore’_ appears to have passed you by?”

Clint was shocked by the angry tone in his voice. “Look Phil. I came ‘cause…I wanted to see _you_. It’s not about what you can do for me, I just wanted to see you were okay. I mean I thought you were _dead_.”

“As far as SHIELD personnel are concerned I _am_ dead.” Phil cut in.

“Yeah, well most SHIELD personnel aren’t us.” Clint countered. “I missed you. Yeah, I missed you at work, but I miss you when we’re not on missions too. Just hanging out in your office...you know...”

Coulson sighed. “You want a coffee?” He asked. “You’ve had a long trip.”

Clint nodded. He considered offering to help, but guessed it might be rude and imply Coulson couldn’t do it. That was not likely to be received well.

He watched as Coulson wheeled into the kitchen area, locked his wheels and pulled himself up on the frame. With a quick movement he lifted it, putting it down next to the coffee machine which sat by the sink. His upper body seemed to be moving fine, but Clint could see Coulson had locked his knees when standing, he maintained his hold on the frame throughout and his movement to the fridge and back for the milk was halting. The filled mugs and what appeared to be a cookie jar were put on a padded lap tray which Coulson took down onto his lap after sitting back in the chair. He turned the chair towards the lounge.

“Come on.” He said.

Clint followed.

“At least say you’ll come and visit. As much secrecy and privacy as you want. I promise. We don’t have a handler on site anymore, Stark won’t let them and I can get him to make a few adjustments to your old guest room so it’s convenient if you stop over.” Clint sighed. “I’m not the only one who misses you.”

“They all know I’m alive then?” Phil said, wheeling up to the coffee table and transferring the tray across.

“Just us.” Clint replied, watching Phil put the brakes on his wheels. “The...uh...Avengers...”

“I expected that you’d find out eventually. Stark can’t keep his curiosity in check. How come it’s only you here? Impulse control has never been high on Stark or Thor’s list of qualities at least and I’m almost insulted ‘Tasha isn’t here.”

“Fury told me you’d asked to disappear. We agreed sending more than one person to see you would be pressuring you too much.” Clint admitted. “‘Tasha threatened the others with retribution if it wasn’t me.” He ducked his head, flushing a little. “I didn’t handle you….dying…well.” He stopped for a moment. “Not that you’re responsible for that.” He added hurriedly. “Or actually dead.”

“I am.” Coulson said. “Responsible I mean. Somewhat.”

There was an uncomfortable silence.

“How bad is it, sir?” Clint had to ask.

“I have damage to my spinal cord around my lumbar vertebrae.” Phil said. “When someone jams a magically powered sceptre into your lower back near your spine and up through your chest, it unsurprisingly tends to cause a few problems. I have partial lower limb paralysis. I’m also missing chunks of my left lung, and had to have some major surgery around my heart and to repair parts of my intestines. If the sceptre hadn’t been curved I would have been stabbed through the heart. As it is I was apparently 6 millimetres from certain death.“

He looked up at Clint.

“Had I not been on the carrier, and that close to that good an emergency medical facility I _would_ be dead regardless. The surgeon started work on me in situ to stabilise me. I would never have survived transportation to a medical facility otherwise.”

“So it’s a straight up spinal cord injury?” Clint said. Phil wouldn’t be the first agent to be treated for or retired due to one.

“No.” Phil said. “It’s not, there was some damage to the spinal cord from the initial injury, but there was damage from the energy contained in the staff as well. The prognosis of that was much less clear. There are still residual readings coming up from that which means that they won’t risk a lot of the treatments SHIELD could have tried otherwise. I’m recovering like any other injured vet who was impaled and sustained a traumatic spinal injury. I’m lucky, I’ve retained a lot of mobility and sensation.”

Clint couldn’t quite get his head round the fact that _this_ was retaining a lot of mobility and sensation. “So what can you and can’t you do?”

“You want the full list?” Phil asked.

“Uh, yeah, go for it.”

“I have limited mobility in both legs, hips, knees and feet, my left leg is worse than my right. I have reduced sensation in both legs. I get spasticity and muscle spasms. I have neuropathic pain issues. I have bladder and bowel management issues. I’m missing half my left lung which means I am more likely to get breathless than other people. I was late learning to use a wheelchair and frame as the doctors restricted my upper body movement due to the thoracic damage and I’m only two months into being allowed to manage on my own most of the time without 24/7 care. I have reactive depression. I take six different medications a day at the moment, and two of those are so I can actually take a crap on my own.”

Clint cringed.

“You don’t want to know what else that involves.” Phil said harshly.

He appeared to realise how aggressive he was sounding, as he sighed and sat back in the chair.

“Does it mean you have to leave your team behind?” Clint asked quietly. “Your friends?”

“Look Barton, this is long term. I'm partially paralysed. The adaptations and mobility issues aren’t just that I can’t walk about, it’s about needing _facilities_ on a day to day, hour to hour basis because the world isn’t set up for people who can’t walk or stand unaided. It’s about the amitriptyline I take for the pain management flattening me at night, I’m not waking up for four hours minimum after I’ve taken it. It’s about the fact it takes me up to an hour to take a crap every morning and that’s with the meds, the right diet and some...uh...physical effort.” He picked up a cookie. “I’m not just going to be nipping up to the city for a visit.”

“Why not?” Clint asked. “It’s not like Stark doesn’t have the money to put in any facilities you could ever need or want.”

“Because I can’t be what I used to be, I don’t want sympathy and I wanted space to start a new life.” Phil said. He picked up his cup and took a sip. “Here, I’m just another injured veteran, which I think is a fair enough assessment. I’ve just got a better severance package than most.”

They looked at each other over the coffee.

“Would you come and see us at least once?” Clint asked. “Just once. Let us all say goodbye properly before we let you go.” He tried to keep the emotion out of his voice, not wanting to guilt trip Phil into anything. He knew he was failing, with Phil at least, who knew him inside and out and had years of listening out for any strain in his voice.

Phil sighed. “Fine. Once.” He leaned back in his chair. “You can stay in the guest room tonight."

" Are you sure I wouldn't be imposing?"

"I'll admit I've been wondering how you were." Phil said. " You want pizza?"

"You know me so well, sir."

“Phil. Just Phil.”


	2. Chapter 2

Clint spent the afternoon sharing all of the gossip he could remember about the Avengers, old colleagues, anything he could think of. He tried, and mostly succeeded to avoid talking about work as such, just the people. Phil had transferred from the wheelchair to the sofa, pushing himself to standing and taking a single step to flop down on the other end of the sofa from Clint.

Pizza was delivered and Phil let Clint help by clearing the boxes and plates away.

The evening was simpler, though almost painful to him at times, sitting on the sofa watching television with Phil. He tried, and mostly succeeded to not just sit there watching Phil while the other man watched television, managing to rein in his crazy stalker staring until the other man announced he ought to take his medication and go to bed.

He followed Phil through as Phil showed him the guest room and bathroom, and as soon as Phil had disappeared into his own room, sat heavily on the bed.

Could he really let Phil go after only one visit to say goodbye?

He stripped out of his clothes and walked into the shower. The towel he dried himself with, the track pants Phil had left him as pajamas and even the pillow cover smelled of Phil’s washing powder, the same brand still, familiar and comforting. If he closed his eyes, it was almost the same as the nights he had stopped over in Phil’s spare room, the closest thing to something that felt like home he’d had since he was a child, however infrequently he had been there.

Clint turned his head into the pillow and forced himself to sleep.

xxxoooxxx

It took a moment for Clint to realise where he was when he awoke. After a moment of bleary confusion, he remembered. The room looked different in the daylight filtering around the curtains. He was obviously seriously out of practice to be that disorientated when he woke. Although...it smelled like home, the picture on the wall was one he remembered from Coulson’s place previously, as was the chair in the corner where he had left his clothes heaped up.

With a sigh he reached for his phone. It was gone nine, he had slept for hours. Well, it was not surprising, he had had practically no sleep for the last few days before coming here.  

He could hear movement somewhere else in the house and pushed himself out of bed to get dressed.

Phil was in the kitchen, eating breakfast cereal, the healthy kind with fibre in. Clint grimaced.

“There’s bread for toast.” Phil said. “Help yourself.”

Clint did. They ate in silence.

“I got to get back…” Clint said.

Phil gave him an appraising look. “I’m glad you came.” He offered. “I’d missed you. And Nat. And the others.”

“Even Stark?”

Phil smiled. “Even Stark.”

xxxoooxxx

Due to the risk of Phil being seen entering the building, particularly when his loss had been so high profile among some SHIELD employees, Clint had arranged with Phil that he would pick him up in the Quinjet from a private airfield SI used and take him directly back to the Tower. Phil hadn’t been entirely happy about this plan, but had recognised it as the only option.

When he got there, Phil was waiting on the runway, a bag hanging on the back of his chair, a pair of crutches clipped to the side and a smaller bag on his lap. Clint knew one of Phil’s disagreements with flying in the Quinjet was the steps to get in. Those had lasted all of three hours of Stark’s time after his announcement Phil had agreed to visit. He saw Phil stop as the steps descended, then flattened out smoothly into the extended ramp.  

Clint slid out of the pilot’s seat and walked to the top of the ramp. Phil was looking up the ramp to him.

“I told you Stark was motivated.” Clint said shrugging. “Coming aboard?”

Phil pushed himself up the ramp with some effort. Clint waited to see if he would ask for help or even intimate it would be welcome, but Phil didn’t. The ramp closed behind him, and Phil turned the chair forward, locked the wheels and used the back of the co-pilot seat to haul himself to standing before he lowered himself into it.

Clint tried not to look like he was noticing as Phil reached out and flicked through the pre-flight checks.

“We good to go?” He asked.

“Yeah. We’re good.” Phil replied, looking at the all green system alerts.

Clint radioed the tower and waited for clearance to take off while a few civilian aircraft took off and landed around them. Next to him Phil was still running through the controls, pulling up menus in the computer systems.

“Stark’s been upgrading again.” Phil observed.

“Improved range on the sensors,” Clint pointed out, “better targeting on the weapons system.”

The radio crackled, clearance from the tower. Clint took off and made for what was passing for home these days.

Only Natasha was waiting when the Quinjet landed, the wind whipping her hair round her face. Clint watched Phil transfer back to the chair and roll himself down the ramp.

Natasha was silent, just walked up to Phil, leaned down and kissed him on the cheek.

“I’m here to get you settled in.” She said. “Then you can catch up with the others in your own time. Pepper has arranged for Stark to be out of the building until dinner, and Jane has taken Thor shopping, so you won’t be disturbed.”

Clint locked down the Quinjet and slipped away as Natasha led Phil off. He didn’t want to let Phil out of his sight, but it was Natasha’s turn now. Only fair to share.

He killed time working out in the gym before dinner, warming up then moving onto flexibility work and control as he knew that if he allowed himself to do cardio he would simply work himself until he literally dropped.

Bruce came in about the time he ran out of martial arts and moved onto circus acrobatics, watching in pleasant surprise as Clint turned a line of backflips down the mat.

“You’re more flexible than I thought.” Bruce offered. “With the bulk of shoulder muscle you’ve got from archery, I expected you to have retained less flexibility.”

Clint kicked up into a handstand, to one-handed, back to two hands and then into a walkover, coming to stand then repeating it handstand, walkover, handstand, walkover back down the mat.

“Circus.” Clint said as he turned to face Bruce.

“Ah, yes, that would make a lot of sense.” Bruce agreed with a smile.

“Have you seen Phil.” Clint asked.

“Briefly.” Bruce said. “He was in the kitchen with Natasha.”

Clint went back into a backbend, kicking over backwards and coming up again. “I still can’t get used to looking down to talk to him.”

“He was making a coffee, when I saw him.” Bruce said. “Using crutches while he was moving about then back in the chair.”

“Yeah, he does that.”

Bruce cocked his head to one side, watching as Clint kicked up into a handstand, dropped his legs into splits then walked over to standing again.

“It’s good.” Bruce told him. “Good he’s retained that much mobility, it’ll be a lot easier for him than if he was completely wheelchair bound. A lot of people think that anyone in a wheelchair can’t walk at all, but a lot of them can walk a little and it makes life a lot easier, being able to transfer from the wheelchair to a chair or bed.”

Clint frowned. “Yeah, he said he can use the shower without help now, and he can use a walker in his kitchen.”

“We’ll need to get one for the kitchen here then.”

“That’s if he’s ever coming back.” Clint sighed, pulling off his shirt and using it to wipe himself down.

“I think he’ll be back.” Bruce said. “I know he told you he’s not going to be our handler anymore, but he’s still our friend.”


End file.
